Finance jobs still hot at B-schools

Even as average the pay package has shrunk for management students entering the work-force in the backdrop of a global economic slowdown, a significant chunk of the students graduating from the country’s premier business schools have opted to work in the banking and financial sector. Mahua Venkatesh & Ruchi Hajela report.

Even as average the pay package has shrunk for management students entering the work-force in the backdrop of a global economic slowdown, a significant chunk of the students graduating from the country’s premier business schools have opted to work in the banking and financial sector, arguably the sector is the perpetrator and the victim of the global economic crisis.

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Part of this could be the resilience of India’s financial sector firms and its own economy.

At the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, 40 per cent students opted for jobs in the troubled sector with Barclays Capital, Merrill Lynch, Macquarie Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland and Credit Suisse among key recruiters.

Though average salaries dropped significantly, finance still attracted most students. “The Indian financial sector has not shown little signs of downturn and therefore the interest was still very high and large number of students opted for jobs in this sector,” Paul Savio, external relations secretary at IIM-C told Hindustan Times.

A student at IIM Ahmedabad (IIM-A) said finance jobs were hot because students saw the current downturn as a temporary phase.

“The decision of over 100 students to opt for jobs in the financial sector reflects that the choice of students is based on long term career choice,” IIM-A said in statement. The highest numbers of offers at IIM-A were made by the Union Bank of India, which made 18 offers. Organisations such as Bank of Baroda, Unicon Securities and first timers like Jaypee Capital Services replaced names of biggies like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley that used to be the highlights of IIM-A’s placement report till last year.